Mac OS X "Tiger" Server Previewed

Remaining unmentioned in Steve Jobs' keynote speech at WWDC today are the many updates to the Server cousin of Mac OS X. As with the Panther Server release, Tiger Server will focus on open source, Windows, and ease of use. A preview DVD was, as with Tiger client, given out to WWDC attendees. Tiger will include some new content server options, including blojsom, a Java-powered "blog" server, which was inspired by Rael Dornfest's bloxsom.

It also adds a Jabber server that provides the option of serving iChat. SSL/TLS and Kerberos can be added for security. A single Tiger iChat client can have chats running on multiple servers, so a user can be on the main iChat server, while having private chats on a company server. Because it is Jabber, non-iChat (and non-AIM) clients can participate too.

Tiger Server also works to make network setup even easier with Internet Gateway Setup Assistant. In Panther Server, setting up a network with DNS, DHCP, NAT, firewall, and port mapping was easier than most other platforms, but still required a good deal of manual configuration, and separate configuration of each service. The Setup Assistant will provide single-button setup of it all.

A Software Update Server can cache and control Apple software updates. So once you're satisfied that the new OS update won't delete home folders, you can OK it for your users to download; and they won't take up your Internet bandwidth, because the server cached it.

Mobile Home Directories allows a mobile user to sync his home directory with a central server, backing it up and allowing an admin to manage it.

A new Windows migration tool will allow Windows admins to migrate from Windows-based servers. Tiger Server can act as a Primary Domain Controller for a Windows network, and the tool will migrate user and group account from an existing Windows PDC into Open Directory 2 and Samba 3.

Tiger Server will retain the pricing structure of the previous versions: $500 for the 10-client edition and $1000 for the unlimited client edition (the number of clients referring only to simultaneous file sharing clients).

Comments

Jabber

[einhverfr]

I find it interesting (and cool) that Apple seems to be throwing their weight behind Jabber.

But one question I have is this: What market is currently being targetted by the OS X Servers? I see some posts on all the general email lists I am on (PostgreSQL anyway), but not too many, leading me to conclude it is a niche market. Any thoughts?

Re:Jabber

[Neil Blender]

What market is currently being targetted by the OS X Servers?

Life sciences, for one. Apple has always had a stronghold in that area (at least academics) and I know of several companies that are selling server based products which initially ran on Linux or a unix variant that are now running on OS X.

Re:Jabber

[stilwebm]

What market is currently being targetted by the OS X Servers?

Someone else mentioned life sciences. They also seek the K-12 Academic markets where it's hard to employ a full time network admin to set up Active Directory, Exchange Server, etc. The same applies for small businesses, those who are likely to prefer the idea of one server does all (or most) of the services they need, especially email and file sharing. Another big market (almost the cliche Apple niche) is the creative market, from media agencies to smaller publishers to design/creative departments at larger companies. Often these organizations don't employ a full time admin, leaving that to outside companies and a designated person within the group. In the case of a creative department within a larger company, they often have a disconnect between the rest of the company (being on Macs while the rest of the company is on PC, for example) along with different needs.

leading me to conclude it is a niche market

As Apple adds more features to OS X server, they hope to please their existing niches while making it apparent to others that they can easily configure a complex server without having to rely on Microsoft. They get the stability and security associated with open source plus the ease of use from Apple.

Re:Jabber

[afish40]

I currently administer a private school running 10.3 Server on an Xserve G4. I'm very much looking forward to these new features, such as Mobile Home Directories. Currently, we're going to implement third-party alternatives for backing up the student's files (they all have iBooks they can take home), but this looks to be a much better solution.

Re:Jabber

[linuxelf]

The Publishing industry has been mostly Macintosh oriented for a long time. I work for a large metropolitan newspaper, and we really love the new G5's, and the stability and ease of management offered by OS X. We used to have quite a few file servers that ran on Windows with Extreme Z-IP for appletalk file sharing. Now, we've migrated all of them to OS X with Samba for Windows sharing.

Re:Jabber

[bluepinstripe]

As the parent post said, life sciences. I work for a large government life sciences research institue, and about half of our total computer base is Macs. There are a lot of labs that use older G4s as if they were servers, and will probably upgrade to X servers over time. Given the general level of ease of use and "reliablity" of our Microsoft equipment--which mirrors my experience pertty much everywhere I have ever worked--these labs would never accept a Microsoft solution.

Re:Namig Convention

[kevcol]

So we have, Lynx, Caracal, Serval, Ocelot..

How do you titillate an ocelot?

You oscillate it's tit alot!

Re:Namig Convention

[Neil Blender]

Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, etc

How many felines are left? Even including "cat" and others, they are bound to run out, aren't they?

Maybe for OS 11 (OS X1?) they will start doing canines or something... Wolf, Coyote, Bear?


They'll probably just pick up a copy of O'Reilly's "Animal Naming Conventions".

Re:Blogs

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, your site is very impressive, especially the the ranting; I believe my favorite quote is something along the lines of you knowing everything about everyone within five minutes of meeting them.

I mention this as your perspective is the answer to your own question. I take it you are a nerd in high school and see yourself as existing on the fringe of whatever social structure exists at your school and your words indicate you have just made the fundamental realization that the fringe is not a bad place to be as it is where creativity often occurs (and you have also embraced the other half of that change in thinking the fringe is somehow a more powerful position than the mainstream; over time you will realize the validitity-- and necessity-- of both).

I say your perspective is the answer to your question because not everyone wants to make a site that is unique and stands out in terms of form. Many people want something easy to create that stands out in terms of content. Many technically inclined people who struggled endlessly to create unique and interesting websites simply because they had nothing to say. When they finally found something to say, they were more interested in getting their message out there in any form and lost the need for it to look unique and interesting.

The blog represents a tremendous step forward in publishing and pop-culture; a large step for humanity in some sense...

Re:Blogs

[Boss Sauce]

While the "check out my cool life" blogs get most of the press, the reality is that there are lots and lots of sites that use blog-type software to control publication. Slashdot, for example, is just a blog with a thick layer of automated security tacked onto its "comment" features.

As a method for handling ANY site which needs regular updating, blogs can't be beat.

Of course, make sure to check out manyforms, or do a lucky Google search for it...:o

Mobile Home Directories...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is their new service so you can chat with people who live in a double-wide trailer. Kudos to Apple for finally making their technologies accessible to the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum!

Market: Academics, education

[tbo]

We use an XServe G5 as a single sign-on and file server for a "lab" of about 14 FreeBSD and Windows XP machines. The computers are used as workstations (and occasionally for light numerical work) by theorists working on quantum information and quantum computation.

Macs seem to be quite popular among the quantum computing community. Ray Laflamme's group (U. of Waterloo and Perimeter Institute) uses them (although maybe they don't have an Xserve), and about 40% of the laptops at a recent quantum information conference I was at were PowerBooks.

Re:Namig Convention

[bewbs]

I for one can't wait for OS X Pussy. Optimized for pr0n!

Re:ACLs

[Anonymous Coward]

Since a lot of code is based on FreeBSD 5.x, check out rwatson's page on POSIX.1e.

ACLs in FreeBSD (and by extension "Tiger") are based on the last public draft of the POSIX.1e document (it was never ratified). The procedure will be the same as is done in Solaris and Linux(?).

chmod and chown do not affect ACLs; to do that you have to use setfacl . When you use ls you do not see the extra ACLs, but a '+' character after the traditional permissions. The '+' tells you that ACLs are present; to view them you have to use getfacl utility.

Re:Areas I hope are improved

[Durandal64]

Apple has added Darwin-level support for resource forks in Tiger, and have recompiled their Unix tools (including cp, mv, et cetera) to properly handle resource forks. So rsync will work properly with resource forks now.

Re:Licensing tsarkon reports Solaris rules FAG.

[Anonymous Coward]

Solaris is the ultimate at eating my asshole while tickling my nutsack with your nose.

Read slower and take in more content.

Every. Single. Thing. That. Sun. Is. First. To. Implement. Will. Appear. Later. On. Someone. Elses. OS. And. It. Will. Be. The. Shit. When. They. Do. It.

Being first and being better doesn't mean one God damned thing in this world. Being first to make noise with it does.

Moot point anyway. Mac and Linux will get "x" amount of applause for doing it after Sun (which gets no applause because they're Sun and this week they're your Java desktop company, next week they'll be your "delivering streaming monkey fucking apps to your PDA through your bunghole IN JAVA...plus we make Solaris company)

And then a couple of years later Windows will add it but it won't work right, be shot full of holes, and leave a steaming turd in your mouth right before it reboots (courtesy of the NAMBLA.SteamingTrd.Trojan virus) and they'll still be lined up 2,000 deep to buy it because they read about it in "Windows Dominator Weekly" magazine which they get sent free of charge and their boss thinks is where you learn this shit when you're not in MCSE classes.

It just doesn't matter Solarisman. It JUST DOESN'T MATTER.

You'd think a fucking Solaris fluffer would know better than to debate the futility of being better in Windows world with a Mac user wouldn't you. Well, you'd be wrong.

Re:Finally 64-bit

[demon]

especially considering NT 4.0 was a 64bit OS on Alpha back in 1996

Wrong - Windows NT for Alpha/AXP was NOT 64-bit. It used the Alpha's 32-bit mode. This was a well-known issue at the time. (I was working for government environmental monitoring facility at the time, and we had some company come in and demo NT on an AlphaServer for us, so I learned a thing or two about it.)

Also, Microsoft may have internal builds of 64-bit Windows, but no shipping products for IA64 or x86_64 so far. That's right, not one. So yes, MS is very much behind the curve. Linux was 64-bit on Alpha some time ago, for example.